


where, o death, is your sting?

by SaidtheSilence



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Death, F/M, Immortality, Rebirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3664674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaidtheSilence/pseuds/SaidtheSilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You will only ever truly love one person, and you will watch her die more times than you can count."</p>
            </blockquote>





	where, o death, is your sting?

**Author's Note:**

> tw: emetophobia, some gruesome things happen but not a lot of detail

...

..

.

And when this which is corruptible clothes itself with incorruptibility  
and this which is mortal clothes itself with immortality, then the word that is written shall come about:

'Death is swallowed up in victory.  
Where, O death, is your victory?  
Where, O death, is your sting?'

1 Corinthians 15: 54-55

 

 

**01.**

The first time is quickest, he thinks bitterly later, a sad joke with his own mind.  She's there until she's not, a candle blowing out in a draft, blinking out of life before he can even register the smile on her face.

He doesn't remember much, just blood on his face and in his mouth, and its hers so it feels wrong on his skin, too sacred to touch with the hands of a sinner.  He remembers a moment, prolonged, like time had stopped, where there was nothing but the sound of his breath and the breeze blowing through her hair and the blood staining the grass a disgusting brown.  Then a buzzing through his veins, like he's trapped in television static, and it poured down his throat and filled the air with a painful, straining  _fullness_ , saturation, claustrophobic and choking him and pulling at his insides like he's a goddamn puppet.

She breathes, and the air around him pops into reality again, and her back arches as she gasps for breath and his hands find their way on her shoulders, and a "Just can't stay away, can you?" to hide the fact that he's shaking.

 

 

**05.**

It never gets any easier, just more interesting.  It's almost as if the universe looks for new ways to kill her, new ways for him to reach out and be just a second too late, to let his own mind and body fail her, to have to relive that first time over and over again.  He knows that each time is his own damn fault, and he knows that someday she's never going to breathe again, but fuck him for finding a bit of painful comfort in the idea that at least she will come back to him.

This time, it takes her a few minutes, floundering in his arms for just a few more seconds of life, her hands curled into his shirt, bloodying it further.  He has enough experience to know that she doesn't remember it - the dying part, anyways - and whispers reassurances into her ear, half holding her in his lap.  No one is there to see his weakness, and no one but him will know.  He hates himself that he needs that secret.

It takes her even longer to awaken, and he lays her body down onto the floor and sits with his knees up, eyes closed, head resting against the wall.  He thinks about the dreams he has: about her, about himself, about death and waking up.

She wakes slowly, silently, and listens to him hurt, then breathes herself to life.

 

 

**12.**

The longest time it takes half an hour, slowly bleeding out with her fingers curled around the pipe in her stomach, choking out a chuckle at the worry in his eyes.  "I think I have a death wish," she says, and he doesn't find it funny but he laughs anyways, a reputation to uphold and all that.  He wants to be sick, seeing her torn apart like that, but holds himself together for thirty agonizingly brutal minutes.  When her hands finally go slack he moves to the side and pukes, heaving over his knees pressed into the cold concrete, hair damp with sweat and prickling his eyes.

He reels himself back in and is careful with her body, especially careful not to damage it further, lifting it away from the rusting pipe and spreading her out to lay flat on the ground, arms draped over her body like she's lying in a coffin.  He thinks he prays as he waits, thinks that the blind hope he carries could pass as faith, thinks he might  _need_ her to wake up this time.

When she breathes again, the hole in her body missing, he makes a quip about her shredded clothes and she spits blood onto the ground between them and ignores it.  His heart wasn't in it, anyways.

He's worried he's losing his touch.

 

 

**23.**

Her dying was their thing, his thing, the sort of situation that only they could seem to find themselves in.  He's pretty sure she could be immortal without him around.  He's her bad luck charm.  She lies beside him again, because it's not like they could ever deviate from the first time around, and he asks, "Why do you keep taking bullets for me?"

He doesn't defend himself because that's her job, and if he takes her place what does she have to return to?  The others yell and accuse and grieve and he can't even say she'll come back because he can't even guarantee that, and he wonders if he says it out loud will it be true anymore?  He doesn't bother to stand, just sits beside her body and waits.

They hug her when she comes back, tears and blood mixing, and she hugs him last, face pressed into his neck, and he hugs her back a little too tightly, but she doesn't mention it and he wishes he could forget it.

 

 

**...**

He loses count, sometime along the line.  He thinks she does, too, but they don't really talk about it.  He watches her beside him, breathing heavily, leaning against the wall with drooping eyes, clutching at the slashes on her chest.  Slowly, he reaches over and touches her elbow, squeezing it softly, the smallest motion he can make.  She looks at him and smiles through the pain, the skin around her eyes crinkling, and he thinks he might love her.

"I'll be right back," she says weakly, resting her head against his shoulder.

As she sighs out one last time, he brushes her hair away from her face.

He waits.

She breathes.

 

 

She always comes back to him.

**Author's Note:**

> issue #43 has given me 430000 more issues


End file.
